Allah's Willing Executioners

On Tuesday evening, a service in progress at a parish church in the west of Vienna was disrupted. Several teenagers, estimated to be aged between 14 and 15, stood in the doorway of the church, laughing loudly and shouting “Allahu Akbar” repeatedly.

The parish priest, who has served the parish for two decades, expressed surprise at the incident and told the newspaper Die Presse that he had never experienced anything like it before. For security reasons, the priest did not disclose the exact location of the parish.

Despite the disruption, the vicar emphasised that there had been no specific danger. He attributed the incident to youthful exuberance and had therefore decided against reporting it to the police. However, the vicar expressed his irritation, as his parish has been actively supporting refugees since 2015, offering German language courses and assistance with dealing with the authorities. In conversation with a colleague, he learnt that similar incidents are now occurring more frequently in other districts of Vienna.

In the light of such incidents, both conservative politicians and secular initiatives are calling for more decisive action by the state governed by the rule of law. Rather than dismissing such incidents as mere ‘excesses’, there needs to be a clear zero-tolerance policy towards actions that endanger Christian life or the right to practise one’s faith without interference. Calls are being made for a stronger emphasis on teaching values in educational institutions, stricter monitoring of Islamist influences, and an unequivocal clarification that adapting to the rules of a free, democratic society is not a matter of discretion, but a prerequisite for living together in harmony.

Unzensuriert

Women in Piddington have been left fuming after GB News revealed the Home Office had refused to share information about its taxpayer-funded guidance given to asylum seekers.

The nine-page pamphlet, which was released on August 19, sparked fury after it included guidance on consent, rape and violence against women.

The pamphlet told asylum seekers that both people must agree to have sex and consent cannot be given if someone is asleep, drunk, or unable to respond.

GB News sent the Home Office a Freedom of Information request to find out how much the pamphlet cost, the languages it was printed in and the number of copies distributed across the country.

The Home Office, which had initially promised a reply by September 17, had still not responded to GB News by October 9.

GB News received an automated response when it chased an update on September 30.

After the Home Office was approached for comment, its Freedom of Information team sent a word-for-word copy of the same email.

Piddington, a small Oxfordshire village home to just 350 people, has been fighting back against attempts to house 1,250 male asylum seekers at MoD Bicester.

Residents voted decisively to leave the UK in a symbolic vote to express their dismay at Labour’s plan.

However, allegations of the Home Office “covering up” the release of information on its consent guidance have fuelled further fears in Piddington.

Local resident Samantha Phillips told GB News: “If the migrants do not pose a threat, why was this leaflet produced?

“There are 133 women and 46 children in our village and we are terrified.”

Louise Brooker added: “The refusal to provide that information does not inspire confidence and, in my view, transparency is vital and would do far more to reassure communities than withholding answers.”

Deborah Walton also said: “Now the Home Office won’t even discuss the cost of its pamphlet or how many languages it was printed in.

“A Government is accountable to the public, this secrecy is very worrying.”

Tracy Clark also told GB News: “It’s just another example of the Government giving unsubstantial platitudes versus providing hard evidence that the women of Piddington shouldn’t feel concerned about their safety during their normal daily lives.”

Meanwhile, Piddington resident Sandra Innes voiced scepticism about Labour’s strategy to tackle violence against women and girls.

“The pamphlet produced is just a tick-box exercise to say that they are educating these men as part of their VAWG strategy,” she said.

Paula Senior added: “As the Home Office refuses to disclose FOI regarding its own pamphlet, I can only conclude that they definitely have something very bad to hide.”

Deborah Swift said: “A seeming block on FOI information regarding sex and other crimes committed by immigrants just reinforces the veil of secrecy from the Government.”

The plight of the women of Piddington is now set to be debated in Parliament, GB News has also been told.

Shadow Women & Equalities Minister Joy Morrissey claimed her Labour counterpart Bridget Phillipson had refused to meet concerned women from Piddington.

She said: “Labour claim they want to protect women and girls but they’re doing nothing about all of these male migrants coming en masse.”

However, a source close to Ms Phillipson said no decision had been taken on use of the military base and engagement with local communities would be part of reaching that decision.

The People’s Channel is also aware that residents in Piddington have had their Freedom of Information requests rejected.

In one rejected request, which was shared with GB News, the Ministry of Justice told a Piddington resident that “complying with this request would impose a disproportionate and unjustified burden on departmental resources”.

GB News understands it will receive a response to its request at some point.

However, the response will arrive well after the September 17 deadline set when the request was made on August 20.

A Home Office spokesman said: “We expect everyone who comes to the UK to abide by our laws.

“If they do not, they will face consequences, including the refusal of their asylum claim and removal from the UK.”

gbnews

The Belgian city of Liège has banned unauthorized public gatherings of more than three people following a week of violent ‘student’ protests that have mirrored the riots sweeping neighbouring France. The emergency order, imposed by Socialist mayor Willy Demeyer, took effect on Thursday, 8 October, and will remain in force until 16 October, as authorities struggle to contain arson, vandalism and attacks on police.

By Thursday morning, Liège police had recorded 194 arrests, including 114 minors, and 43 injured officers since the unrest began on 1 October. Of those detained, 158 were administrative arrests and 36 were criminal arrests.

The protests have followed a remarkably similar trajectory to those garnering significant international attention in France. Initially organized around secondary schools, demonstrations against education reforms quickly escalated into street violence as masked groups moved into commercial districts, set fire to blockades and attacked police. In Liège, the first protests began on 1–2 October before intensifying dramatically earlier this week.

On Wednesday, 7 October, rioters torched rubbish bins and electric scooters, smashed shop windows and targeted businesses around Place Saint-Lambert and Place de la République française, two prominent commercial districts in the city. Authorities temporarily closed Liège-Guillemins railway station and warned businesses to shut their doors. Thursday was comparatively calmer under heavy police deployment, although another 76 arrests were reported.

The initial grievances concern education reforms introduced by the centre-right MR–Les Engagés government of Belgium’s French-speaking Community, including changes to teachers’ workloads, education funding and higher university fees. But as in France, the movement has expanded beyond its original educational demands, attracting far-left organizations and groups whom authorities say have little connection to the schools involved.

‘Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin went further on Thursday, declaring that Antifa had infiltrated the demonstrations’

The involvement of the communist Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB), for example, has sparked controversy similar to that surrounding the role of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) in the French riots. RTL footage showed demonstrators carrying campaign material from RedFox, the party’s secondary-school youth organization. MR chairman Georges-Louis Bouchez accused the PTB of manipulating students and suggested sending the bill for the destruction to party leader Raoul Hedebouw. The PTB rejects accusations of responsibility for the violence.

Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin went further on Thursday, declaring that Antifa had infiltrated the demonstrations. ‘Adults are manipulating children to convey violent political messages,’ he said.

The crisis has also produced a remarkable contradiction within Belgium’s left: Socialist mayor Demeyer has imposed emergency restrictions on a movement openly supported by politicians from his own party at the national level. On Wednesday, Socialist parliamentarian Christie Morreale accused the government of introducing measures that students perceived as ‘unjust and violent’, while PTB deputy Amandine Pavet attacked military expenditure at the expense of education.

Meanwhile, far-left collective Bruxelles Dévie condemned Demeyer’s restrictions as authoritarian, accusing the Socialist mayor of suppressing student mobilization. Its statement argued that a government choosing to restrict young protesters rather than listen to them was becoming ‘increasingly fascistic’.

The demographic composition of the riots is also very similar to that of the French unrest. Liège is located in Wallonia, where approximately 37 per cent of residents are foreign nationals or Belgian citizens of foreign origin. In Liège municipality itself, the proportion reached 57.7 per cent in 2025, comprising 36.9 per cent Belgian citizens of foreign origin and 20.8 per cent foreign nationals.

‘The riots in France have already inspired similar actions elsewhere in Europe, particularly in Italy and Greece’

The riots in France have already inspired similar actions elsewhere in Europe, particularly in Italy and Greece. In Turin and Rome, radical-left student collectives have occupied schools under the slogan ‘Let’s do as in France’, while other groups organized demonstrations in Bologna. One of the stated reasons behind the mobilization is opposition to the Meloni government’s new school rules, which prohibit burkas and other face coverings and limit the number of foreign-background students in individual classes. These protests, however, have not escalated into the same level of violence seen in France or Belgium.

Similarly, in Greece, the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) openly endorsed the French protests and called for nationwide student mobilization on 8 October, with school walkouts, occupations and demonstrations reported in Athens, Patras and other cities.

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More than 148,000 people remain subject to outstanding arrest warrants in Germany, and only 11.2 percent of them hold exclusively German citizenship, and overall, 87 percent of arrest warrant suspects are foreigners, according to figures the Federal Ministry of the Interior provided in response to a parliamentary inquiry.

Foreign nationals account for 87.3 percent of the total of suspects wanted for arrests, while another 1.5 percent are German citizens who also hold a second nationality. The data is already adding to the debate about mass immigration and criminality, especially in a country where the amount of violence, rape, and serious offenses are disproportionately committed by its foreign population.

Welt newspaper obtained the ministry’s reply to a question from Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker Sebastian Münzenmaier.

Münzenmaier told Welt am Sonntag: “The figures speak for themselves: The overwhelming majority of criminals wanted on arrest warrants do not have a German passport.” He called for a “rigorous change of course” that would include permanent and complete border controls, the immediate termination of the stay of foreign criminals, and the enforcement of prison sentences in the country of origin.

While German citizens form the single largest group, at 16,671, Germany also features a population where 81 percent of people hold exclusively German citizenship. Romanian nationals follow closely with 16,123, then Polish nationals with 12,721, Georgian nationals with 6,869 and Turkish nationals with 6,696. 

Alexander Throm, the domestic-policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) parliamentary group, said: “Every open arrest warrant poses a security risk.”

He added that “the high proportion of foreign offenders, including many from other EU countries, shows that action must be taken.”

Throm also noted that border controls introduced in September 2024 have done more than limit illegal migration: “They have not only curbed illegal migration. Since their start in September 2024, over 17,500 people have also been apprehended at our borders with outstanding arrest warrants.”

Heiko Teggatz, chairman of the German Police Union, called the total worrying and said it “of course, represents a security policy problem.” State police forces, he told the paper, rarely have the staffing to mount dedicated searches; most arrests occur as a “chance hit or bycatch.” The union has long cited personnel shortages as a central obstacle to improved public safety.

Marcel Emmerich, the Greens’ domestic-policy spokesman, agreed that the volume of open warrants constitutes a serious problem, “especially when it comes to dangerous persons, extremists, violent or sex offenders.”

However, Emmerich rejected broader border checks, noting: “Instead of hoping for random hits at border controls, targeted searches are needed, especially for dangerous perpetrators of violence, threats and people from the field of politically motivated crime.”

Sebastian Fiedler, the Social Democratic Party’s domestic-policy spokesman in the Bundestag, cautioned against reading the aggregate figure as evidence of 148,000 undetected dangerous offenders still inside the country. “A significant portion of this is due to substitute prison sentences for unpaid fines. In North Rhine-Westphalia, more than half of all outstanding arrest warrants in total were such cases, he said. Warrants can also remain active against people who have already left Germany or been deported, so that any remaining sentence can be enforced if they return. 

“For example, they will continue to be put out to tender for a search so that if they re-enter the country, a remaining prison sentence can be enforced,” Fiedler said.

While the crimes may include many petty offenses, the totals are stark. German nationals represent a minuscule share of the open arrest warrants in a country where 81 percent of the country is made up of German nationals.

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Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder has come under sharp criticism in Berlin, including from Chancellor Friedrich Merz, after he spent Vladimir Putin’s 74th birthday at the Russian leader’s home in Moscow on October 7, the Kremlin said.

Schröder, 82, was already in the Russian capital on business when Putin learned of his presence from media reports on the morning of October 7, the presidential press service said. Putin then invited his “old friend” to his residence.

Photographs released by the Kremlin on October 8 showed the two men smiling and shaking hands in front of a traditional Russian stove, with a samovar used for boiling tea water visible in the background.

The official reason for the trip was commercial. Schröder was admitted on September 30 to the supervisory board of Hyperglobus, the Russian retailer that operates Globus-branded hypermarkets and became independent of Germany’s Globus Holding in January 2025.

On October 7 he visited a store in western Moscow, where employees greeted him with applause. He delivered a short welcome speech and met staff behind closed doors, Russian business media reported.

The chain runs 20 hypermarkets in Russia.

Putin met with ex-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on Russian leader's BIRTHDAY

Putin invited him to his home after learning that Schröder was in Moscow pic.twitter.com/3VP89h6YbX

— RTRussia (@RT_Russia_) October 8, 2026

The visit revived long-running controversy over Schröder’s ties to Moscow.

He was chancellor from 1998 to 2005 and later held senior roles linked to Russian energy interests, including Nord Stream and Rosneft. He chaired the Nord Stream 2 AG supervisory board and left the board of oil group Rosneft in May 2022.

Those contacts continued after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

On May 9, speaking after the Victory Day parade in Moscow, Putin named Schröder his preferred interlocutor among European politicians for mediation in the war. Berlin said it had noted the remarks but treated them as part of a series of sham offers.

On October 9 a deputy government spokesman, Steffen Meyer, said Merz was “deeply outraged” that the former chancellor had gone to Putin’s home for the birthday. He called the visit “downright immoral”.

Criticism also came from inside Schröder’s own Social Democratic Party (SPD), though there was also support, as some SPD members argue someone needs to talk to Russia. Party leader and Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil told the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung the trip was “completely unacceptable”, while SPD member of parliament Ralf Stegner said Schröder had gone as a private citizen and was one of the few Germans who still had access to Putin.

Green politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, chair of the European Parliament’s security and defence subcommittee, called the visit a disgrace. Göring-Eckardt wrote on X that it was a disgrace for Germany, a betrayal of Europe and a disservice to peace. Strack-Zimmermann, of the Free Democrats, set the trip against Schröder’s refusal on health grounds to testify before a Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania inquiry into Nord Stream 2.

Schröder and his wife, So-Yeon Schröder-Kim, had not immediately responded to requests for comment, Reuters reported.

The celebrations came a day before a particularly deadly Russian attack on Ukraine: on October 8 a glide bomb hit two buses in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, killing at least 33 people and wounding 18, regional authorities said.

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Belgian right-wing politician Filip Dewinter was left bleeding after being violently assaulted during a confrontation with members of a Moroccan wedding party at Antwerp City Hall on Friday, 9 October. The Vlaams Belang politician was grabbed by the throat, shoved against a wall and repeatedly struck in an attack that forced police to intervene.

The incident unfolded shortly before noon outside City Hall, where a large Belgian-Moroccan wedding party had gathered. Dewinter, who was arriving for official municipal business, said members of the crowd recognized him and began shouting insults, including ‘racist’, before the confrontation turned violent.

Zoals zo dikwijls verdraait de mainstreammedia-media de feiten… Ik ben niet opgepakt (zoals @HLN_BE beweerde…) maar legde klacht neer wegens slagen en verwondingen (mijn belager werd ondertussen geïdentificeerd en verhoord); ik ging niet ‘in de clinch’ met ‘een’ familie (@GVA)… pic.twitter.com/eSLcMrxVK7

— Filip Dewinter (@FDW_VB) October 9, 2026

According to Dewinter, one of the Moroccans chased him towards the entrance, seized him by the throat and forced him inside the building, where he was punched and kicked. Videos circulating on social media show a man physically restraining Dewinter and pushing him against a wall. The politician suffered a bleeding wound above his eye.

Antwerp police confirmed the attack and Dewinter’s head injury. Several Rapid Response Team units were dispatched to restore order, while two members of the wedding party were stopped by officers. Dewinter subsequently filed a complaint alleging assault and injuries.

The veteran politician condemned the attack as another manifestation of growing intimidation against those challenging mass immigration. He accused Antwerp’s Moroccan community of behaving as though it were ‘all-powerful’ and described his hometown as an ‘occupied and Islamized city’.

hungarianconservative

France has ordered 3,000 substitute teachers into its worst-hit secondary schools, the first substantial concession on classroom conditions since a student revolt began spreading out of the Paris suburbs in late September.

French education minister Édouard Geffray said on TF1 on October 8 that the teachers would go from October 9 to 114 schools classed as red for overcrowding and staff shortages, and to another 400 rated orange. Rectors would also be allowed to recruit several hundred teachers beyond their quotas, he said.

He spoke after meeting teaching unions at a school in Reims, northeast France, a day after a televised address by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, who asked protesters to pause and promised decisions only at the end of October or in early November.

That timetable angered union leaders. Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of the secondary teachers’ union SNES-FSU, said the Prime Minister had produced a blank sheet of paper and was playing for time.

Lecornu welcomed the announcement and said an online consultation run by the ministry had drawn more than 66,000 responses. The government would table amendments to the 2027 budget bill reflecting some of the pupils’ proposals, he said.

The Interior Ministry put turnout on October 8 at 71,500 across the country, 24,500 of them in Paris, with 504 people arrested and 48 police officers injured. The Education Ministry said 375 schools were fully or partly closed.

More than 6,500 people have been arrested since the movement began, most of them minors. Lecornu’s office has counted 215 teenagers and 85 school staff injured along with more than 700 police officers, and interior minister Laurent Nuñez suspended the use of stun grenades on October 7 after a 15-year-old lost a hand in Lens, northern France.

In Paris, riot police turned water cannon on the crowd at the Place de la Bastille. La France Insoumise (LFI) leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a candidate in next spring’s presidential election, posted on X that the Bastille had been retaken and called for a bigger turnout on October 13.

The government has accused the left-wing party of encouraging the blockades, a charge it denies. Student and teaching unions have called a day of action on October 13 and a wider mobilisation on October 17.

The concessions land as France prepares a 2027 budget under the European Union’s excessive deficit procedure, leaving little room to buy off the streets. The unrest has drawn attention abroad, with US President Donald Trump linking the school protests to immigration and Iran summoning the French ambassador over the policing.

Nothing has yet been offered on class sizes or on Parcoursup, the university admissions system at the heart of the students’ complaints.

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Harry & Meghan want to have their cake and eat it. That’s the view of most of the panel on today’s show. They want all the benefits of royal status with none of the duty or obligation. Their current demand is that they should receive full police security. To bolster their case they have compared paparazzi hanging outside their children’s school to the recent terorist scare at R.A.F. Fairford, a comparison one of the panelists believes is “very insulting”.

Italian authorities are investigating the alleged existence of a parallel Islamic “sharia court” run by an autonomous private arbitration organization in the city of Padua, Veneto.

Public broadcaster Rai News detailed the Padua Public Prosecutor’s office opened a probe against the “Italian Islamic Arbitration Chamber,” a private organization, on allegations that it is resolving civil and commercial disputes “according to the principles of Sharia.”

The organization was reportedly constituted on March 3 and has been operating for the past seven months, with one of its listed objectives being the “promotion of arbitration as a means of dispute resolution. Rai News observed that, according to the allegations, the Islamic “Arbitration Chamber” claims that its rulings “will have the same effect as a judgement issued by an Italian court.”

The investigation stems from a complaint filed this week by Italian attorney Francesco Minutillo, a member of the Futuro Nazionale party led by former Italian Army general Roberto Vannacci. Per Tgcom24, Minutillo alleges in the complaint that the Islamic organization is pushing Italian law “to the sidelines” in favor of Sharia law.

The attorney accused the organization of presenting itself as a “path to Islamic justice in Italy.”

“This is not a matter of religion, but an exclusively legal issue and the potential establishment of a parallel justice system,” Minutillo reportedly stressed.

Italian Prosecutor Angelantonio Racanelli detailed to reporters on Thursday that, at the current phase of the probe, there are no suspects or an alleged crime. Racanelli nevertheless emphasized that his office will carry out the duties entrusted to it by law and will conduct all of the necessary investigations. Justice Minister Carlo Nordio stated to be certain that the Padua magistrates will establish all the corresponding facts.

Rai News and other Italian outlets observed that the Union of Islamic Communities of Italy (UCOII) has distanced itself from the accused organization, and no association, center, or mosque represented by UCOII has “promoted, supported, or recognized” the Padua-based Islamic Arbitration Chamber.

“The UCOII has reiterated that justice is administered by the courts of the Republic and that parallel structures are unnecessary,” Rai News wrote.

According to Rai News, the UCOII affirmed in comments shared with the broadcaster that, on a religious level, Islamic tradition “requires believers to respect the laws of the country in which they live.” The Union added, “relying on the state justice system is consistent with the [Islamic] faith.”

In remarks shared with the local outlet Padova Oggi on Friday, the organization’s founder Omar Vanin claimed that the Italian Islamic Arbitration Chamber is “not a court” and does not administer a form of “alternative justice, and it could not be otherwise.”

According to Vanin, a 36 year-old attorney residing in Padua, his organization instead conducts arbitrary proceedings, “a widely used tool that has always been part of the Italian legal system, aimed at resolving commercial and property disputes.”

“We do this to offer a tool to businesses and individuals, including those of the Islamic faith who, due to their culture and religious orientation, choose to follow certain principles of Islam in commercial mattersm, such as the prohibition on interest, the principles of fairness in transactions, and the pursuit of a consensual resolution of disputes, always and in all cases in compliance with Italian law,” Vanin reportedly said

“We regret to note that even representatives of institutions can contribute, through statements and public stances, to amplifying a narrative that risks fueling divisions and conflicts,” he added. “Our work stems precisely from the opposite intention: to offer tools for dialogue, mediation, and dispute resolution, in full compliance with Italian law.”

breitbart

The BBC has paid white staff less than black, Asian and minority-ethnic colleagues in every pay band on the mean, and in six of seven on the median, according to its own annual report and accounts for 2025-26.

In the lowest band, black, Asian, mixed and other ethnic-minority employees had median pay 13.2 per cent higher than white staff.

In the highest band the gap was 5.3 per cent, again in favour of minority staff.

White median pay was higher in only one scale, band F, and then by 0.6 per cent.

The corporation’s grades run from A, the lowest, to F, then a separate tier of senior leaders. Most staff sit in C and D.

The median is the midpoint of the workforce. The mean is the simple average, which a small number of very large salaries can pull upwards.

On the median, minority staff are paid more in every grade except F: 13.2 per cent more at the bottom, 1.3 per cent in B, 5.4 per cent in C, 3.5 per cent in D, 4.3 per cent in E, and 5.3 per cent among senior leaders.

Band F is the exception, and a narrow one: White staff are ahead by 0.6 per cent.

On the mean the exception disappears. White staff are paid less in every grade, by 9.3 per cent at the top. The corporation says its pay is “fair, clear and competitive”.

The same report shows the pattern is not confined to race.

Women in senior leadership were paid 1.4 per cent more than senior men.

Disabled managers were paid 7.5 per cent more than other managers.

The highest-paid LGBTQ+ employees earned 8.8 per cent more than colleagues recorded as not LGBTQ+.

The headline ethnicity gap still favours white staff, by 0.7 per cent, and men by 7.6 per cent. That is an average across the whole workforce.

White employees, men, the able-bodied and straight staff hold a larger share of the best-paid jobs, which pulls the overall figure up.

The BBC said the share of ethnic-minority staff in higher-paid roles rose in 2025-26, the largest year-on-year move in the series.

John Whittingdale, the former culture secretary who ran the department between 2015 and 2016 and helped draw up the 2016 royal charter, said the corporation should pay staff “on the basis of the value and merit they contribute”.

The gaps sit alongside a 50:20:14:25 diversity target, aiming for half the workforce to be women, 20 per cent ethnic minority, 14 per cent disabled or neurodivergent, 25 per cent working-class; and mentoring schemes built to move black, Asian and minority-ethnic staff up the grades.

The figures have landed while the corporation’s funding and remit are being rewritten. The current royal charter expires on December 31, 2027, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published the terms of reference for its review on December 16, 2025. The licence fee rose to £180 (€207) a year on April 1, 2026.

The BBC has been criticised for similar race-based policies on screen, under the industry term “colour-blind casting”.

An independent review of portrayal and representation commissioned by the BBC, published in January, defended the practice in principle but warned that diversity measured at programme level could look “clunky” where it did not arise from the story or the setting.

In King & Conqueror, the BBC’s drama about the events of 1066, Elander Moore, of Trinidadian descent, was cast as Morcar, the Anglo-Saxon Earl of Northumbria who fought the Vikings and the Normans, and Jason Forbes as a fictional Anglo-Saxon thane.

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light put non-white actors in the Tudor court.

The 60th-anniversary Doctor Who special “Wild Blue Yonder” cast Nathaniel Curtis, who is of mixed Indian and white descent, as Isaac Newton. The review named that episode.

The historian Zareer Masani called the approach “absolutely crazy” for a period before the Norman Conquest, when Britain was at its least multicultural.

David Abulafia, the Cambridge historian, said viewers would have to put up with the “bizarre notion that there were black earls in Anglo-Saxon England”.

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